Posts tagged Bible App

What is the Resource Guide? The Resource Guide is your personal research assistant within The Bible Study App. When we say a resource is “enhanced” for the Resource Guide, it means it’s more than just a flat ebook that you read once and put away. An enhanced resource is a powerful feature in The Bible Study App that you can use to find what you’re looking for easily and quickly. Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias are two of the products that Olive Tree enhances for the Resource Guide.

Here are three ways The Bible Study App enhances Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (screenshots are from an iPad 2 and a Nexus 7 – click on an image for a expanded view):

ONE:

Open your favorite Bible in the main window. (I’ve got the ESV open in this example.) Tap the split window handle and drag it to a width or height you like. As I scroll through the Bible text, the resource guide keeps up with me and searches through all the books in my library for content related to the Scripture passage in the main window.

If you scroll down the Resource Guide results, you will see the section headings “People,” “Places,” and “Topics.”

Tap or click on the person/place/topic you want to learn more about. I chose “Altar” in this example. The Bible Study App then brings you results from within the resources you have on your device. I’m using the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible for our example.

You’ll see that the resource has the words “article to altar” underneath the book cover. Tap/Click on the book cover and The Bible Study App will take you directly to the article within the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible. After you’ve tapped on the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, you can scroll down and read the entire article without having to leave your Bible text.

When you encounter a map, chart, image or photo, you can tap to bring up a closer view.

If there are scripture references in the article, just tap the verse and it will appear in a pop-up window.

You can also tap the top right-hand corner of the pop-up window to bring up the option to open these hyperlinked references in the main window or the split window.

TWO:

You can also utilize the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible as a traditional encyclopedia in The Bible Study App. Just Tap/Click the “Go-To” button and scroll through this awesome resource as you would a hard-copy encyclopedia.

In iPhone/iPad app, you also have an additional option. Tap and hold a word in the Bible text and an option menu bar will pop up. From here you get the options to Copy, Highlight, Note, Bookmark, Share, Define, Lookup and More.

If you tap “Define” you will get the integrated iOS dictionary pop-up.

If you tap the “Lookup” button you’ll get “hits” from your resources on just that specific word. From here you can follow the same steps as you would in the resource guide option above.

If you’re like me, your introduction to Bible study tools was a bit rocky. I first began teaching and preaching in my local church at age 14. Before my first sermon, my Dad handed me my first Strong’s Concordance and a brand new Bible. Not really knowing where else to start, I would read through a passage of Scripture and look up every word in the Strong’s Concordance that I didn’t understand or that caught my attention.

I quickly learned that I needed a more formalized approach to studying God’s Word. Since that time I’ve learned that I needed some basic tools to keep my Bible study on track.

A Basic and Solid Library

To help you get started, Olive Tree has bundled resources together to help you dig deeper into God’s word. These bundles give you the basic tools to help you build a solid starter library. All of these wonderful resources are designed to be integrated into the Resource Guide within The Bible Study App for a seamless and easy-to-use Bible study experience.

The Bible Study App has over 50 Bibles available in multiple languages and as result is used by millions of people all around the world. Once a Bible is downloaded to your device you don’t need an internet connection to read or study.

In the videos below you can see how to setup your own parallel Bible in the Bible Study App for easy translation comparison.

For Mobile Devices:

For Desktop:

If you haven’t heard, our sync server recently crossed the 100 Million mark!

We’ve had a lot of people ask What’s in that 100 Million Synced number? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Out of the over 100 million synced items, they break out like this:

What’s really interesting is the breakdown of Annotations (highlights, notes, book ribbons, and bookmarks)

100 million is a HUGE number and we are so thankful for our Olive Tree community.

As a token of our thanks, we’ve expanded our 100 Million Sync celebration to include 50% Off Popular Commentaries like NICOT, NICNT, Pillar, IVP, and 25% Off or more on over 700 products in our store. These offers are exclusive to OliveTree.com. Go HERE to see these exclusive deals.

I love that you can search by the English, Greek, Hebrew, or by Strong’s Numbers! Even though I personally have limited knowledge about the underlying original languages, the CWSB allows me to read through the text in English, and quickly get in-depth info on any word there just by tapping on it!

The CWSB will give you information on the parts of speech for a word (and give you links that explain what those parts of speech mean if you don’t know – with examples no less!) – the Strong’s Number for that word, a VERY robust dictionary / exegetical discussion about the word in question as well as a link to a concordance at the end of nearly every entry showing you every verse in the Bible where a word is used.

Compare this resource to a standard “Strong’s” Bible and the amount of information available with the CWSB is staggering.

of persons to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly of things to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing

By comparison, in the CWSB, the entry on αγαπαω goes on for over 2 pages when pasted into my word processor – with various usages of the word compared and contrasted between different passages of scripture.

Here’s a very small taste of the article on αγαπαω from the CWSB (comparing the different words for love used in Peter’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus in John 21 – FYI: Greek words in the text are transliterated into English for ease of use):

The third question of Jesus to Peter was different, “Do you love me [phileo, Are you my friend]?” (a. t.). Are your interests, now that you have seen Me risen from the dead, different than before the resurrection? Peter became sorrowful because he understood the deeper meaning of Jesus ‘question (John 21:17). His answer utilized two similar, but distinct verbs, oida, to know intuitively, and ginosko (G1097), to know experientially:”Lord, thou knowest, [oidas, intuitively] all things. Thou knowest [ginoskeis, know experientially] that I love thee [philo, that I am now your friend].”

With this one resource you can get a backpack full of resources that you can carry around in your pocket – and instead of having to reference a number in one volume – then open another one and find that number, I can just tap on a word – then tap the links. Seamlessly moving between different ‘books’ in the collection.

Have you ever heard a sermon where the preacher says something like “turn to Luke 4:5, hold your finger there, then turn to 2 Kings 17:29″? Well, then you know that turning to both passages and “holding your finger” in a digital Bible can be a challenge.

This is where the History Button can come in really handy.

(screenshots are taken from an iPad and an Android Phone. Click on the images for a larger view)

First, use the Go To Button and navigate to the first Scripture Reference (Luke 4:5 in this case).

iOS

Android

Then navigate to the second Scripture reference (2 Kings 17:29) using the Go To Verse chooser.

Now, tap - the History Button: (the clock icon)

iOS

Android

From here, you can use the left/right arrows to see your forward and back history.

iOS

Android

This will help you navigate quickly between the two passages.

You can also tap “View History/View All”.

Now you can view your history by date or by Scripture reference You can view by date or by title (depending on your device).

iOS

Android

The “View All” feature is especially helpful if you’ve ever gotten three verses into a Bible Study and want refer back to one of those previous verses.

Extra Tip for iOS:

If you have any iOS device (iPhone/iPad), you can also use Gestures as shortcuts for the History back and forth. By default, 2 finger swipe left will take you into your History Forward, and 2 finger swipe right will take you to your History Back. You can also go to Settings > Advanced Settings > Gestures/Shortcuts to view other Gestures/Shortcuts or set your own customized Gestures/Shortcuts.

How do you navigate quickly in The Bible Study App? Do you have any quick tips for navigating your history?